Diablo II: Diablerie (Dungeons and Dragons/D&D d20)

List Price: $19.95 Discount Price: $7.00

Customer Reviews:

Mmmm, yummy... [Posted on 2001-01-01]
I bought this book as a DM so that I could run a 3rd Edition Diablo II campaign with my players, and with this tied in to D&D, we are having no problem. It is a great book, although the included adventure seems more like a few battles to find a unique weapon. There are many, many monsters inside, though only few unique ones. Basically, the unique monsters are broken down into 4 or 5 (or even 6) different types of that monster. My players bought the Diablo II enemy miniatures, and the names are not consistant. For example, Tainted are called Hellhounds. There are over 100 new spells, and most of them are rather nice, though most of the Barbarian skills are a bit too powerful. The Necromancer also has some overly powerful spells. If you've played Diablo II the game, and played D&D using this book, you have to agree that a bit of Diablerie was twisted. For example, a Necromancer can only revive a creature once per week. Aren't Revivals supposed to be their main power? The Barbarian skills are just too much, they make him a macho man. For example, Iron Skin automatically adds a +2 AC, and Natural Resistance makes him much more durable to sorcerers and wizards. Is this guy vunerable to ANYTHING? Overall though, since you can have a few house rules, this book would be a nice supplemant to D&D. I do suggest however, that you buy it straight from a Wizards store, as the cover is very flexible. It will easily get bent in the amazon.com box. The book also features a variation on D&D weapons. The most impressive thing I've found about this book, however, are the unique combinations of magic items. I've found that the new magic items I award my players are always different, and I actually see them trading their imbued equipment!!

If you are looking for a Diablo II campaign, look no farther. Here is your book. If you want some more monsters, spells, and over 1,000,000 magic items, here's your book.

A true waste of paper. [Posted on 2001-01-11]
We all love Diablo, Diablo II and 3rd edition. Being a GM, Ibought this book hoping to use the monsters and treasure etc toenhance my campaigns. I expected the book to be a supplement to the3rd edition rules and allow for playing 3rd edition within the Diablogame world.

This book is more of a conversion of 3rd edition into ahalf diablo/half 3rd edition game system. The weapons with tweakingcould be used in a 3rd edition campaign, but many of them seem a bitpowerful compared to those in the DMs guide. The monsters are aboutall you can take from this book for a 3rd edition campaign, but eventhat is a bit of a waste of .... Heck I don't even remember seeingstats for Diablo himself? Certainly not his brothers or anyinformation about the NPC's that assist the heroes throughDiablo.

In my opinion, Skip this book and skip it fast. Spend your... on a 2nd edition module and convert it to 3rd edition. You willget more for your money!

D2, 3ed [Posted on 2001-03-15]
With the release of the Diablo 2: 2nd ed, I must admit: I was pretty impressed. True, the game wasn't 100% refined, but the concepts that the dnd team had to work with were pretty well done.

That being said, the diablerie supplement was a rather large dissappointment.

Most of the material was simple conversion of the 2nd ed. version into 3ed format. True, the classes were displayed into 3ed, with some interesting improvements, but a lot of the D2 flavour was soured by "game balance" issues, which in my opinion were simply someone's opinion of how the D2 world should work, instead of how it did. A potent example was the extremely limited lifespan of a Necromancer's minions. Another was the fact that, unlike the computer game, a character couldn't master all the features of their class.

The spell conversion format was sadly done. In addition to the forementioned limited duration minions, many spells didn't function anything like their computer counterparts (cf: Bone Spear...). Additionally, while spellcasters were brought in line with the computer game, they were effectively truncated when compared to mainstream dnd.

The expected updates to the magic item system, including a comprehensive discussion of the gems and socketable items, was nonexistent. Likewise, the descriptions of the various items lead to a great deal of confusion over certain game effect issues, such as bonus stackability and over-lapping or contradictory effects.

Additionally, many blatent errors are present throughout the book. For the price you pay, you'd expect the editors to at least catch simple errors, such as table headings. Likewise, items in the equipment table don't quite match those in either the magic item listings or the character descriptions.

Despite all this, a DM willing to wade through a lot of errors can still make good use of this book. I'd suggest a good read-over to decide what revisions you'd like to make before starting play. Likewise, for the serious D2 gamer, a trip to the Chaos Sanctuary (linked through the Blizzard site) can provide a lot of clarifications and inspirations.

Good One [Posted on 2002-05-21]
It's a good book, it isn't very [costly], it gives you a bunch of new monsters (but, the most is only a variation of a principal type, and the description isn't very clear).
It has 10 PAGES OF RANDOM ITEM MAGIC GENERATION and can create more than a million magic items (i'm for real!).
And it has some good alternative core D&D classes (Holy Dark Spider! The Amazon rules!).
Besides that, you will find a rule system for keeping track of item damage (the basic idea is good, but you need to work it out a little so you can really use it in your game).
There's a really stupid adventure in there. For god's sake, dont use it!
Concluding, if you want something to make your random dungeons way better buy this. If you want to roleplay, forget it.

Au contraire! [Posted on 2003-02-14]
I quite liked Diablerie, despite the fact that it generally gets no respect: not only do I see it getting slammed by a lot of critics here on Amazon, but also I tend to see it on the "50% off" rack at the game stores. (Then again, because I bought it for half off may be a contributing factor to why I like it so much.) Quite simply, it offers a lot of options, and for an RPG, options are good. If a DM will let you get away with it, the book provides interesting new classes, and some wonderful spells. Truly, the spells are what I like about this book. A few of the spells tend to be fairly powerful for their spell level, but my DM takes the attitude "If Wizards of the Coast published it, you can use it." My spellcasting gnome uses "Fire Bolt" all the time: 1st level Wizard/Sorcerer spell, inflicts 1d6 fire damage per caster level up to 5d6, automatically hits any single target in range, Reflex save to halve damage. And when I get around to DMing, I plan on using some of the monsters from Diablerie, especially some of the undead creatures.

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